To be Loki'd - Loki x fem reader

Chapter 42 - Sorry

At long last, after hours of boredly driving through asphalted and cemented highways, the familiar look of your house started to draw itself out .

It was weird seeing it again in front of your eyes; like taking a step back into the milky texture of time. The more steps you took, the more noises, scents and memories started slowly unfogging and reaching you. 

The house was exactly as before, seeming as if time had never touched it. As if you were still living under this beautiful roof with your parents. As if nothing had ever happened to you.

It was the same graveled path leading up to the ebony front door and garage, the same cream bricks that held the house up, the same flower beds except with no flowers in them, the same blue tiles of the roof, the same white painted leuvers next to the large windows of your home. 

Gravel crunched underneath your feet in regular loud sounds as you and Loki approached the panelled entrance door. Suddenly, you stopped to turn around and stare at those greyish stones lying underfoot. 

You remembered. When you were five or six, one of your Christmas gifts had been a brand new bike, painted in f/c, lying majestically under the decorated pine tree. It seemed so cool and so fast for the little child you were. Even now, you remembered the glow on your parents faces from making you so so happy. However, at the beginning you had been forced to use those training wheels to ride up and down the street. Even when your pride wouldn't allow it. Once on a cooly hot summer evening, you had decided to remove those and drive 'like a big girl' to prove you didn't need those embarassing wheels. The gravel you now stood on was the gravel where you had fallen over, after a flawless ride without those. Your knee had been badly scratched, tearing a hole through one of your favourite trousers. You had laughed whilst your parents rushed over, quite worried and unhappy with your disobedience.

One good thing did come out of it though: you never had to use those wheels again. 

You must have been staring at those boring pieces of stone for a while since you feel a cold hand landing on your shoulder, its fingers anchoring you back. "Why are you staring at those?", he asked gently, peering at them to reveal their hidden secrets.  

Your throat feels tight and you just clear it gently, answering with a heavy tongue, "I-I'm thinking." 

Once you had arrived at HYDRA, within the next few weeks all memories of before had been sweeped to a far corner of your mind. It kept you safe and the pain relatively at bay. But at night, as guards regularly stomped in the corridors in front of the cells, you unpacked these memories like a rare delicacy, reviving it all in your mind. 

He knows you are hiding some underlying pain but doesn't press further, instead releasing a loud breath and looking ahead at the porch and verandah where the white paint had started peeling in hidden areas. 

Walking over to the empty flowerbeds, you knelt by the dry earth and said, "My mom and dad used to garden together here. They... always planted hydrangeas. Uhm, in pink and blue." The picture was clear in your head as you pointed to the allocated spots. "They had gone to Japan for their honeymoon and-", you sniffled a little, feeling the prickling sensation that could only mean tears were on their way, "There, the blue ones symbolise gratitude and understanding whereas the pink ones represent romance, true feelings and sincere emotions. They- We loved the meaning; they wanted us to cultivate those literally and figuratively." 

Loki thinned his lips in a sad expression and gently rubbed his hands over your shoulders and back as silent tears trickled down the slopes of your face. You didn't remember it hurting this much. 

"I used to help them plant and take care of them as well. Picking out weeds whilst wearing my little straw hat or swinging my flowery watering can. It... it had daisies painted on it. I always ended up pouring more on the stones than the soil.", you said in a wispy chuckle, wiping away the salty rivers with the back of your warm hand.